War Criminals
by Mandolin77
Summary: Forte has fallen into madness after the assassination of Count Waltz, and the revolutionaries of Andante and the royals of Baroque are caught up in the middle of it all.
1. Chapter 1

It's dark. That's all Crescendo knows. Dark and cramped and humid, as if the air itself is taunting his thirst.

God only knows how long he's been in here; the prince doesn't bother counting, and anyway, there is no daytime to count with. The meals come irregularly, infrequently, and the pains in his stomach tell him they are only feeding him enough to keep him alive.

Why bother? Why not just kill him? Crescendo has the sickening feeling that they're toying with him, trying to break him, and the longer he stays in this darkness, the more profoundly he realizes that he is _alone. _There is no one out there to save him, or he would have been saved already. What little time he had—what little time he'd hoped his royal blood could buy him—is running out.

The prison used to be crammed full of other people, other war criminals like himself, but one by one by one the bodies have been carried out, dead from hunger or disease. As far as he knows, he is the only one left, and Crescendo is sure his will be the next corpse buried in a shallow, unmarked grave.


	2. Chapter 2

Falsetto doesn't know where she is.

She's been wandering the roads for weeks now, unable to find either a way into Forte or a way back to Andante. Everywhere she turns, there's something—another pack of soldiers standing guard, a burning wooden cart that's been dragged to the middle of the road, a little puddle of blood or a baby's rag doll that she can't stand to step over.

She's had to stop more than once to throw up in the bushes.

It feels like there is nothing sacred anymore, nothing they won't snap and stomp and rape and pillage. It feels like the whole world has gone to hell. And she wants to go back home to Andante, to Jazz, to the warm safety of their underground rebellion where she could feel like she was doing something without killing babies along the way. She wants to go back to the way things used to be.

She wants to find a way out.


	3. Chapter 3

Jazz likes to pride himself on knowing a thing or two about rebellions, but_ this_... this isn't rebellion anymore. This has spiraled into an all-out war. The country is slowly consuming itself, roasting its own people while they stand out in the streets with their misdirected anger and shout curses and sling mud, and even down in the pseudo-safety of Andante the world is falling apart.

Dozens of their men have been captured and charged with insurgency, tortured, starved, slaughtered like animals in the depths of Forte's dungeons, and the ones who've survived thus far are just empty shadows of the people they used to be. Jazz wants more than anything to be strong for them, to be a _leader_ for them, but somewhere along the way he's forgotten what it means to be brave.

Falsetto's gone.

Allegretto's gone.

Communications with Baroque have been severed.

They are trapped in an underground tomb together, all of them just waiting to die, and at night he can hear Polka sobbing her little heart out into her pillow and he has to cry too.


	4. Chapter 4

"Go on," Viola says as she pushes the wooden gate open. "Out."

The goats don't move.

Viola sighs and crouches down in front of them, and the gentle animals press closer to her, licking her hand. "I know," she murmurs, reaching out to stroke wiry fur. "I don't want to leave you either, but I don't have a choice."

Actually, she does have a choice. The madmen left in charge of Forte have not yet reached her little hut. There is still enough time to run away—but that would mean abandoning her friends, and that is the one thing she's decided she will never do. They _need _her, right now more than ever, and if she has to walk through hell to save the people she has come to love... well, so be it. She's more than ready to walk.

"I'll come back for you. I promise." And she swings her rucksack over her shoulder and starts off towards the black southern smoke without looking back.


	5. Chapter 5

The door to the prison opens, and Crescendo looks up at the sound of approaching feet. He hopes it's someone bringing food, please, God, _food..._ but no, they walk right past him and wrench open the cell next to his.

He's going to starve in here.

There is the rusty squeak of hinges, and the guard grunts as he throws a limp body inside and slams the door shut. Crescendo hears a man coughing softly, and then the key turns and the the guard retreats and they are left in silence and darkness and nothingness again.

"Hello?"

There's no reply.


	6. Chapter 6

It's a miracle, a bloody miracle, when Falsetto steps into the town and recognizes it. She hasn't been down this way much before, maybe once or twice in her entire life, but she instantly knows where she is.

Ritardando.

It's a tiny, wealthy port city down by the southern sea, big enough to warrant a place on the map but not so big that anybody bothers to live there. It's filled with sailors and merchants and shopkeepers and snobs who can't quite afford to move to Forte—and it's _empty, _thank God, of enemy soldiers. It won't stay that way for long, but at least she knows now where she is and how to get home.

She hurries down to the ocean's edge, thinking of cleaning up a little, maybe washing off the smell of blood and dirt and sadness that seems to cling to her like a shroud. The town is unnervingly quiet, but Falsetto doesn't care; she just wants a bath and half a loaf of bread, and then she'll disappear.

She's good at that.

But not good enough, she realizes, because behind her a voice she remembers shouts, "Hey!"


	7. Chapter 7

Jazz is both relieved and terrified when the letter comes, carried by a tiny white pigeon that flutters exhaustedly into his room.

It's from Baroque.

He tears the seal with shaking hands, and the smudged-ink paper falls open in his lap. He recognizes the handwriting as Serenade's, and his heart leaps up into his throat with sadness and joy because the princess is alive, still, to fight through this hell.

_We are surrounded_, it says, and the first part of the last word is smeared until he reads it as 'wounded' the first time through. _Crescendo has been captured—assumed dead. This war will kill us all. Gods' speed. _

Jazz crumples the letter in his fist and throws it to the ground, and the little pigeon flutters as if unused to such violence. This war will kill them all.


	8. Chapter 8

The southern hills have been smoking for days. The thick black cloud curls up through pale blue skies, cutting through the autumn-yellow fields and soft windy air and leaving another ugly scar where beautiful things used to be.

Beautiful things that, for all Viola knows, might still be there—the Agogo Forest, the close-knit port towns and the clear blue waters of the sea beyond. And every time she looks in that direction her heart aches just a little, pulling her towards the chaos instead of pulling her away.

There are people down there; that much she knows for sure. And by the gods, she's going to do something, _something_ to save them, these strangers she risked her life to save once. She didn't put her neck out there to stop Count Waltz just to watch his citizens burn, and her footsteps are resolute even as smoke begins to fill her lungs.


	9. Chapter 9

"No!"

Crescendo tears himself out of sleep just as the heavy door to the prison swings open, and in the dim and blinding light he can make out the struggling figure of a young man being carried in. "No! Gods damn it, you can't do this to me! Let me go... I said _let me go!_"

The voice sounds vaguely familiar, but everything is sort of dreamy and far away. He is sick with lack of food. The boy seems to be moving in slow motion as he kicks out wildly, missing one guard by mere inches before screaming again. "I don't know anything! What the hell do you want with me? I swear to you, I don't know anything!"

Crescendo doesn't see the punch, but he hears it—a sick sound of muscle against soft flesh—and the boy goes suddenly quiet. Crescendo lies back down on the floor and tries to keep from crying.


	10. Chapter 10

"Hey!"

Falsetto turns around, ready to draw the dagger hidden in her belt, and then relaxes when she sees a scrawny boy hurrying towards her, dressed in a yellow coat.

"You came back!" Beat rushes forward and throws himself into her arms, and Falsetto, startled, has to take a step back to keep from tumbling. "Where have you been? How are you? How's Jazz?"

"Hey," she answers awkwardly, patting his back. "We're—all fine. Where's Retto?"

"He left," the boy says matter-of-factly, straightening up. "I've been staying with the priest." He looks at her suddenly, brow furrowed. "Are you okay? You're skin is kinda pale."

She considers that for a moment, wondering if she is okay, if the _world_ is okay, and finally shakes her head. "Just... tired.

Beat smiles widely and tugs at her hand. "Well, come on! I was heading down to the church anyway, and I'm sure we'll have a bed for you there!"


	11. Chapter 11

It's funny how his plans have changed.

Once upon a time Jazz was a pretentious youth with freckles and choppy black hair, dreaming of a utopia where friends and enemies alike could live together until the end of their days. He had wanted to rule the world back then. Right now he is a nervous man with a knife under his bed, praying to a god he sometimes believes in to give him strength, to teach him to lead these people who had put their faith in his lies.

He is afraid of himself, afraid of his power and his powerlessness. He doesn't know how much longer he can fool these soldiers into to thinking he can save them.


	12. Chapter 12

It's not an accident; it's a riot.

Strange people with the sharp faces of Forte are chanting, and although they are still too far away to make out the words clearly over the roar of flames Viola can guess what they're yelling. Mineral powder. _Mineral powder!_

They're burning the forest down in an vain attempt to continue mining land that has nothing left to give, dying people desperate for the drug that would kill them. They don't know how to cope without the pseudo-medicine they'd been addicted to for gods only knew how long—and gods only knew what they'd do to get it.


End file.
